


Eyes Wide As Starlight

by PermissibleNormality (ForbiddenArcanum)



Category: Original Work
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Goddesses, Happy Ending, I might write more of them, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Tragedy, Witches, Wizards, body theft, doppleganger, either or really they're pretty loose with the terms, gay magic boys, gay wizards, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 07:38:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17863127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForbiddenArcanum/pseuds/PermissibleNormality
Summary: Screaming and crying isn't going to fix anything. It's going to fix everything--it's just that you won't be the one doing the fixing.





	Eyes Wide As Starlight

The smell of roses filled the air, sticking to my robes, clinging to any surface it could find. I held my sleeve up to my mouth, coughing as I tried to breathe through the light pink smoke that had filled the room. I had followed the potion recipe to the letter, and it still came out horribly--like always.  
  
“Valentine,” Castor said, his nose pinched between his fingers as he swung the door open. “What did you do?”  
  
“I followed the recipe to the letter, I--” I coughed into my sleeve. “--I swear!”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“I… I think so! Here!” I took a deep breath, and presented the potions book to him, my cheeks puffed out with air.  
  
“How much rose oil did you put in?”  
  
“Three cups, just like it said! Rose oil, 3 C,” I managed to squeak out. Castor inspected the page, kneeling down to my height, his brown eyes scanning over the page. He squinted for a moment, and then removed his fingers from his nose, licking one and rubbing it on the page. “Hey, wait, what’re you doing?!”  
  
“That says rose oil, three degrees celsius.”  
  
“W-What?!” I fumbled with the book, struggling to catch it as I turned it around. There, hidden behind a dried potion splatter, was a small circle just above the C. “No, no, no!”  
  
“C’mon, Aster taught us about this, Valentine.” Castor shook his head, a slight smile on his face. “Why would a recipe ever call for three cups of rose oil?”  
  
“I just… I thought, maybe if I really tried to follow it to the letter this time, if I just did it like it said instead of making adjustments…!” Castor put a hand on my shoulder, and our eyes met. He forced a half-hearted chuckle, and averted his gaze just slightly over my shoulder, over towards the cauldron that was still giving off pink smoke.  
  
“Hey, it’s okay. Maybe… maybe next time, yeah?” Castor shrugged, and extended his hand towards the cauldron, making a pinching movement with his fingers. The fire underneath the cauldron snuffed itself out, and the pink smoke slowly began to dissipate.  
  
“I… yeah, next time.” I tilted my head down, trying to hide my face. If the brim of my pointed hat didn’t do the job, my wavy blonde hair certainly covered them enough.  
  
“I’m gonna head upstairs to bed, just wanted to check out the smell first. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Castor tried to sound cheery, but I could hear the weariness in his voice. A more sensible person might assume he was tired--but I wasn’t feeling particularly sensible.  
  
“Mhm,” I nodded, moving over to the potions book, shutting it much more loudly than Castor shut the door on his way out. As soon as his footsteps faded from my earshot, I leaned over the cauldron, looking into the glossy, pink solution--seeing myself, distorted and snivelling and pathetic. Tears were already running hot down my cheeks as I thought over and over how much I had embarrassed myself in front of Castor. He’d never like me. Never the way I wanted him to.  
  
Shaky breaths and blurred vision slowly encroached, my tears dripping down into the rose-scented disaster I had tried to pass off as a potion. As they sent ripples across the surface, my mind played the memory back again and again.  
  
‘Hey, it’s okay. Maybe… maybe next time, yeah?’  
  
‘Hey, no biggie. Next time.’  
  
‘Hey, next time.’  
  
‘Hey, next time, maybe you’ll actually do it!’  
  
‘Maybe you’ll actually do it for once!’  
  
‘Maybe you’ll actually do something worthwhile instead of fucking around like an idiot, day in and day out. God, I’d fucking pity you if you were worth anything more than… this.’  
  
My chest tensed and my throat burned with pain as I screamed into the cauldron, the potion shaking and distorting my reflection even further. That was what I was. A monster. An idiot. A disgusting freak who never should’ve started to study magic. As an apprentice, I was a failure. As a friend, I never knew what to say. As a potential romantic partner?  
  
I was hopeless.  
  
I grabbed a chalice off of a nearby shelf, throat raw from screaming, my vision still blurred with tears. I dunked it into the potion, the solid pink color and strong scent entirely unappetizing. I swished the liquid around in the chalice, watching it swirl for a moment--and then downed it in one go.  
  
As my vision began to spin and fade, I remembered Aster telling us to never, ever ingest a faulty potion--not unless we had a death wish.  
  
‘Lucky me’, I thought--and collapsed to the floor.

I felt cold. So, so cold--and my vision was slowly being flooded with light. Everything was completely out of focus, shifting and sliding around as it got brighter and brighter. There was a sound of waking water--and suddenly, I was floating above water, the full moon shining down onto a gigantic statue that sat in the center of a lake. The stone bridge that led to it was being crossed by two people. I instantly recognized them as Castor and myself.  
  
“I still don’t really know why we do this,” The me on the bridge said. “I’m a little behind on my lecture notes…”  
  
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve got it all written down--I’m even a little bit ahead.” Castor smiled, putting his hands halfway in his pockets as he walked. “So: this statue is dedicated to the goddess of magic. She’s supposed to be the one who gave the first magic practitioner their powers. It’s a whole legend, I think it’s chapter 13? There’s this guy, in a starving village…”  
  
As Castor rattled the tale off, I noticed that the me on the bridge wasn’t paying very much attention. Rather than being engrossed in the story, he was fiddling with the edge of his robes, adjusting his hat… doing anything but actually engaging with the conversation.  
  
“...But basically, we come here because she’s the reason we even get to be apprentices. She makes wizards, witches, magicians, astrologers… who they are.” Castor smiled brightly--and I could see his face fall just a little bit as the other me nodded meekly.  
  
“Y-Yeah, I get it.” Even though I knew I had meant it, Castor’s smile disappeared.  
  
With very few words exchanged between them, they both knelt in front of the statue and began to pray. My eyes widened as I clearly heard Castor’s voice in my head--and felt the other me’s wavering uncertainty of what to say to the goddess.  
  
“...Please help him. I know he can do what he wants if he really tries, but I worry about him so much. Help me find some way to make him feel… better.”  
  
I could feel my heart freezing over in my chest, shoulders shaking--even if I couldn’t see my body right now, even if I didn’t know whether or not this was real--the sentiment echoed through my head like an empty pot dropped into a canyon. Berating myself was one thing--I knew on some level that it was melodramatic. But to hear something so from-the-heart, so concerned, so Castor-esque in Castor’s own voice--it hurt more than anything. It hadn’t been that I was inferior. It was that I thought I was inferior. Maybe it was a mix of the two, but I wasn’t able to tell. Before I could delve deeper, I heard the other me speak up in his head.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he prayed. “I’m sorry I took your gift and I’m squandering it. I know Castor is doing better than I am, and I promise, I’m really trying, but… everything is so hard. Sometimes, I think about just giving up. Maybe I don’t need to be good at magic after all. But…Castor keeps me going. I don’t want to let him down, so please, help me realize what I’m doing wrong!”  
  
I couldn’t tell why the vision was suddenly so blurry--until I realized that the me that was praying was crying as quietly as he could. I remembered every hot tear, every choked-back sob, trying not to let Castor notice. The tears burned even hotter the second time as I realized what I had done. His only prayer was to help me--and mine was selfishly asking for help for myself. Whether or not that help was given to me, I couldn’t tell--but I knew at least one thing. The screaming, the crying, drinking the faulty potion...  
  
I had let Castor down.  
  
He would find me the next day, eyes lifeless and body spread out next to the bookshelf, chalice clasped in my hand--and he would be crushed.  
  
The pain in my chest skyrocketed as I tried to open my mouth and scream again. I thought I was dead--I thought that finally, I would at least be free from this. Even as the vision faded into darkness, even as I sunk below the lake one more time, even as I saw the faintest pinpricks of light in the deep, dark water--I felt nothing but regret and shame.

I woke with a jolt. The world slowly turned itself upright, and I got a good look at my surroundings. I was still in the brewing rooms, lying down on the plush red carpet that was next to the bookshelves. Beside me, there was a bright pink stain. Aster would kill me.  
  
Wait, kill me?  
  
I could’ve sworn I had been dead. I felt myself, hands against my chest. Solid. I looked down at my legs. Still there, unmoved and miraculously unharmed. I figured I should probably start to clean the mess up as best I could before anyone had noticed what I had done. I was lucky to be alive--and I wasn’t about to suffer being yelled at after that vision. I felt plenty guilty already.  
  
The issue arose when I did. My legs didn’t move--or rather, my legs duplicated themselves. One pair lay on the floor, where I had been passed out. The ones that actually obeyed my movement stood half-inside and half-outside, my translucent form seeming to phase through my own body.  
  
“...Oh, oh gods--I’m actually dead.” I said out loud to myself.  
  
“Dead is a funny word for it.” Not expecting a response, I yelped--and spun around, backing up towards the cauldrons on the other side of the room. Nobody was in the room--just my body on the floor.  
  
“What… who said that?!” I called out, eyes wide and ice seeming to form in my chest.  
  
“I would say you,” my own body said, sitting up. “But unfortunately, I believe we’ve made quite the arrangement! I’m very nearly you, that much is fair to say--I’m just… better.” I looked into my body’s eyes, the normally olive irises a bright, mint green.  
  
“You… what are you?!” I screamed, backing up further. I stumbled over my own feet, and tried to grab onto something--but found my hand simply phased through the cauldrons and brewing stands.  
  
“I told you! Ah, this is definitely one of your flaws coming into play. You don’t listen, unlike me.” He chuckled, gracefully covering his mouth with his hand. “I’m you, but better. That’s what your potion set out to do, right?”  
  
“I… potion?” I racked my brain, thinking past the lake vision, the crying, the screaming… and my eyes locked onto the potion book, still open on the floor. That was right. I was making a self-confidence potion. Rose oil was supposed to be a small part of it--it was meant to make self-love easier, instill courage, and encourage understanding. In small amounts, it was already very potent, but I had added… “Three cups--”  
  
“Yes, thank you, finally. Playing quite the game of catch-up, aren’t you? But it’s even more than that--not that you’d understand. Castor is so far ahead of you in your classes, it’s a wonder you’re even still here. But it’s alright, I’ll explain it to you. After all, in addition to being so much more knowledgeable,” he shrugged his shoulders, flipping his hair to the side with a shake of his head, and tossing his pointed hat directly onto the coat hanger by the door. “I am also so much more of a generous and amazing person.”  
  
“I… I doubt you’re a person at all.” I balled my fists, my breath catching as I realized there was no tension in my muscles. Everything was wispy, nearly formless, and couldn’t even begin to interact with the world.  
  
“Oho, what a wonderful idea! But, like most things you suggest, very wrong. You see, the properties of the potion you brewed, even with an enormous overdose of rose oil, would still have been the same, albeit longer-lived and certainly much stronger--in both taste and effect. However, you couldn’t stop yourself from adding even more incorrect ingredients, could you?”  
  
“What do you mean? I didn’t even alter it after Castor left! I just…” I stopped myself short, swallowing thickly.  
  
“Oh, I know what you did. We’re essentially the same person, remember? I keep telling you--you don’t listen! But you’ll never take my word for it, I suppose.” He sighed, shaking his head, his cocky grin never leaving his face--MY face. He walked with purpose towards the bookshelves, pulling a volume without even looking at the spines. He flipped it open to the page he needed on the first try, setting it up on one of the stands in front of the cauldrons, and began to waltz about the room, gathering ingredients and brewing tools. I tried to read the recipe, but it was written in traditional Sylvan--something potion brewers typically only learned after opening their own apothecary. “I’ll explain it so even someone like you can understand. Please don’t make me waste my breath again.  
  
“When you broke down, you screamed and cried and threw a fit, just because of your silly little insecurities about your magic abilities--which, honestly? You have every right to be concerned by them. You’re nowhere near as powerful as Castor, much less Aster. At this rate, you’ll still be an apprentice when Castor starts on his fieldwork training. Anyhow, you did all of that nonsense right over the cauldron, didn’t you? Bitter tears of self-loathing and a scream of agonizing despair--although the specific subclass of the scream would also be self-loathing.”  
  
“Screams have subclasses?”  
  
“Chapter 57, Valentine. Try and keep up. I know it’s difficult for you.” He shook his head, scattering rose petals into the now-boiling cauldron and pouring in a heaping helping of honey. “You hated yourself so much that you physically expelled every raw emotion you had about it into a potion strictly made for self-love. And so, you created a version of you where you only kept the things you wanted. Me.”  
  
“But you’re not me! And you have my body!”  
  
“Surprise, surprise! Turns out that us humans are just so exceedingly complex that removing part of yourself through magical means causes a split. Normally, we would share the body, arguing and trying to figure out how best to re-merge ourselves. But, since you’re a complete and utter failure as a magic user and a human being, you expelled so much of what made you YOU that… well, you’re trying to steer the carriage hands-free, if you catch my drift.”  
  
“But you… you’re steering it, so just hand the reins over!”  
  
“Oooh, you see, I would like to--but you nearly got us killed! You tried to commit suicide not… what was it, eight hours ago? I don’t think I can trust you all too well, now can I?” He gave me a look of disbelief as he stirred the pot with a large paddle made from cherry wood. With his other hand, he tossed in a large amount of black tea leaves.  
  
“You… you can’t do this! I can’t just stay like this forever!”  
  
“Oh, but you can! If you remain just the way you are--a snivelling, worthless excuse for an idiot of a human--you’ll be just like that forever. Split and watching me succeed for the both of us. Buuut!” He pointed a finger at me, smiling with such a pity in his eyes as he set the paddle aside, scooping out some of his brew in a ceramic mug. “You could change, slowly--until you’re just like me! Like the you that you wanted to be! Then there’ll be no difference between us, and, well, once you’re worth something, we’ll merge.”  
  
“But that’s… I don’t…” My eyes darted around the room, searching for anything to help me. Everything he said felt like itching under my skin, and every time I made eye contact it was like I was being plunged into cold, dark water. Even looking in his direction sent a fire up my spine to burn the back of my throat.  
  
“I can hear your thoughts, you know--and don’t try to deny it!” He chuckled, wiping down the sides of the mug and setting it aside. “You did this. It’s your fault. You hated yourself so much that the universe just happened to give you a solution--and you’re saying you don’t want it? That’s, pardon my Elvish, fucking ridiculous! It’s almost like you grew a spine and want to stand up for yourself, want to make a big show against this ‘weird new guy’--but newsflash! Again! Not listening! I’m YOU but BETTER!” He threw his arms out wide, shaking his hands and smiling as wide as he could. “You’ll see--if you pay attention this time. For once.”  
  
Before I could even say anything more, the door creaked open. Oh, gods, it had been eight hours. That meant--  
  
“Good morning, Valentine.” Castor paused mid-stride, cocking his head to the side. “Did… did you stay up all night? In here?”  
  
“Oh no, just an early bird, I guess.” My other self grinned brightly, making direct eye contact with Castor. “And actually, call me Val from now on.”  
  
“Oh, uh, okay, Val.” Castor smiled a little, shutting the door behind him.  
  
“Wait, he’s not real!” I yelled, running over to Castor, waving my arms. “He’s just a fake, he’s not… he’s…” I slowly came to a halt, my motions slowing as Castor looked through me--literally straight through me. He didn’t acknowledge anything I had said. He couldn’t see or hear me, and I couldn’t touch him. To him, I was completely invisible. I spun around, and Val was smirking at me from afar, his eyes half-lidded, before he turned his attention back to Castor.  
  
“I made you some tea, since I knew you’d be up. You always get up early to do some reading, don’t you?” Val smiled, but I could feel it in my mind--he didn’t mean anything he said. He didn’t care about Castor’s habits, he just cared about the tea, for some reason. It was disorienting, feeling someone else’s--yet simultaneously your own--emotions. What struck me as odd was that he could hear my thoughts, but I couldn’t hear his. For a moment, I tried to quiet my mind to hear what was in his head.  
  
It sounded like void. The sound was indescribable because there was nothing to describe, but even being able to say nothing was happening wouldn’t be sufficient. It was a purposeful absence where something used to be, something that was hollowed out--but somehow, not entirely empty. I clutched my head, drawing in a sharp breath as I allowed myself to think again. I couldn’t comprehend it at all.  
  
“Oh, thank you, Val. That’s… very sweet of you.” Castor smiled softly, giving the cup a sniff. “Oh, rose with honey. You remembered--although after last night, I’m surprised you went for it.” Castor stopped himself before he took a sip. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to be so rude. I’m just joking around, I promise. I really do appreciate it.”  
  
“No, it’s okay--I messed up. It’ll never happen again.” Normally, when someone said that, I didn’t believe them, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt, knowing they would try their hardest. When Val said it, it was stated so plainly and matter-of-factly that I couldn’t help but be shaken by it. He had really meant it: me, but better. Me, but perfect. “Go on, try it, I promise it’ll do exactly what I want it to this time.”  
  
Oh gods, that was right--that wasn’t tea at all!  
  
“Castor!” I leapt at him, aiming to knock the mug from his hands--and phased through both him and the tea, collapsing to the floor. At the back of my head, where Val seemed to reside now, I felt a tickle of satisfaction. I turned over, just in time to see Castor take a hearty sip. If Val felt my heart quaking, he didn’t show it.  
  
“Oh, this is… really very delightful! It’s amazing. The brew isn’t bitter at all, and the honey comes through very well. It’s delicious! A work of art.” I squinted at Castor in disbelief. Like Val’s claim, it was stated so honestly that I had no choice but to believe it. He had never talked about anything I’d made for him that way, at least not with the same conviction. He had never talked about anything that way before.  
  
“You’re not too bad yourself.” I gasped as Val suddenly put a hand on Castor’s cheek, locking eyes with him. “Works of art don’t have much on eyes like yours.”  
  
“V-Valentine, I--I mean, Val, what’s gotten into you?” A dark red blush spread across Castor’s face. He moved to step back--and halfway through his stride, he completely froze. It wasn’t uncertainty--like everything else in Val’s plan, it was clear-cut and definite. “What’s… gotten into me?” He moved forwards again, dropping the tea, the mug shattering against the ground and staining the red carpet even further. He grabbed Val by the small of his back, and kissed him. He kissed him so tenderly and softly that, for a moment, I thought maybe he had always fancied me. However, a feeling of smug satisfaction tainted my surprise as Val released just a small bit of knowledge to me.  
  
As Val and Castor locked lips against the wall, I scrambled to my feet, moving over to the potion book. The recipe made sense to me now that Val had shared his knowledge of Sylvan with me--although every word made me wish he hadn’t.  
  
‘Love potion,’ it read, ‘for eternal and undying love.’  
  
Val opened his eyes, still caressing Castor as he kissed him, and raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say ‘I win.’  
  
I dropped to my knees, watching in abject horror as they continued on for what seemed like days, until finally, Castor pulled back.  
  
“Oh gods, Val, I don’t know how I didn’t see it. That’s why I’m always concerned about you--I can’t believe I had never realized how much I… I love you.” His eyes sparkled with epiphanies, one after the other. “How much I enjoy spending time with you, studying with you, I… I don’t know what made me so blind.”  
  
“It’s okay, Castor. The truth is, though… that this… relationship between us?” Val looked over Castor’s shoulder, shrugging nonchalantly. “It’s never really been about that for me.”  
  
“Wait, wh… what are you saying?”  
  
“Castor, it’s… that kiss? It was really nice, yeah, but I just can’t see us fitting together.” Val shrugged, not even making eye contact as he said it. My shoulders tensed, my teeth ground against one another, and I leapt to my feet.  
  
“WHAT?!”  
  
“I mean, us?” Val shrugged again, shaking his head. “We’d never work. You’re just too…” He stifled a laugh. “Nevermind, I won’t say it. But good on your for confessing your feelings.” Val patted Castor on the shoulder, and made his way out of the room.  
  
I watched as Castor stood there, dumbfounded, and I swore I could hear the sound of a million pieces of glass scattering. I reached out for him, wanting desperately to comfort him, to tell him that none of this was real. As soon as I tried, however, I began to slide away from him, my feet gliding along the ground as if it were ice.  
  
“No, no! Wait! Wait, Castor! Castor, please!” I leaned forwards as my back slipped through the brick wall of the room, and I slowly phased through it, entering the hallway. I whipped around, looking in the direction this odd pull was coming from. Of course it was Val. The further he moved, the more I was pulled along. I ran up to him, heart pounding in my chest and face a bright red.  
  
“What was that?! You drugged him, and then you left him like that?!” I reached out to try and grab him, strangle him, punch him--anything--but my hands fell right through.  
  
“Calm down, Valentine. God, you’re always so emotional. Maybe that’s why you never listen. Too busy listening to every malformed emotion that finds its way into your otherwise empty head.”  
  
“Fuck you!”  
  
“Ohhh, watch the language! All I did was make it so we could succeed more.”  
  
“What does that even mean?!” I yelled, my voice cracking, composure be damned.  
  
“Castor is eons ahead of you in terms of magical development. He has a natural talent, and even though I’m much better than you, I’m working with the inherent magical ability I’ve been given. If he stayed the most powerful magic student here, he’d swipe up jobs and opportunities from us in a flash--so I decided he needed to get a handicap. Now we’re still in first, and we have way more time to do it since he’ll never truly recover from that. I told you I’d make us both succeed.”  
  
“But that’s… that’s not success!” I choked out, pulling on my own hair. “That’s… that’s terrible! You made him love you and you broke his heart--we were supposed to want his love, and even that was achieved in an awful way!”  
  
“We?” Val scoffed. “I have no interest in him. As a colleague? Nothing. As a competitor? Yes--but not anymore.” He pushed open a large oak door that led to a stone path. The sun was just rising over the forests that surrounded the academy, but as he walked forwards, it only seemed to be getting darker.  
  
“But isn’t that what makes us human? Our connections, our friends, our experiences?”  
  
“What would you know about being human?” Val sighed. “Gods, you really are as annoying as you think you are. You got that right, at least.” He began walking faster. The sun began to set behind glades of evergreens. “Maybe it’s what made you human--what made you happy. But I’ve only got a mind for one thing.”  
  
“Success?!”  
  
“Exactly. You were so tied up in your shitty magical abilities that you tried to kill yourself. So what was left over? The part of you that actually yearned to do something instead of whining about it.” As the sky darkened more and more, I could only see the reflection of moonlight off of his eyes, and none of his other features. “And now I’m going to settle that forever. I’m going to do something about it.”  
  
“What are you going to do?” I stopped to look around, having blindly followed him--although it would have happened even if I didn’t want it to. We were deep in the evergreens now, and the path back to the academy was too dark to see. The moon had risen overhead, shining bright, full, and white. Val was headed towards a large lake with a stone bridge--and a statue in the middle.  
  
“That’s all you ever do, Valentine. You ask. You don’t do anything. Even now, you’re not even trying to stop me. You’re just saying every question that pops into your empty little head. And me? I’m going to get things done. Now watch. You can be the first to claim that you witnessed The Amazing Val single-handedly unmake,” he laughed, raising his hand into the air, electricity crackling around his hand. “A goddess!”  
  
With a blast of thunder, a bright spear of lightning came crashing down onto the statue of the goddess--the head toppling into the lake, the arms crumbling to the sides, and the base splitting in half. In one swift move, he had dismantled the enormous structure. Stunned, I was dragged along flat-footed as he approached the ruins he had just created. A black cloud began to rise from the rubble.  
  
“Goddess of magic, waker of seers, maiden of illusion--you’ve given me a gift, and for that I thank you. Unfortunately, you’ve also borrowed my services as the greatest mage of this generation and the next. I’ve come to collect what I will be owed when I take this world by storm--something the old me could never do.”  
  
The cloud swirled, spiraling around the crumbled form of the statue, twisting into a tornado of smoke. The center grew darker and darker, the black shadows from the center tainting the lake around us. The moonlight no longer reflected off of the surface, and the waves came to a complete standstill.  
  
“Show yourself. Face me! Face perfection in human form!” His eyes were wide, his grin stretching for ear to ear, and from the back of my mind came a surge of adrenaline. This was Val fulfilling his purpose. This was him at his height. He was ready to fight a goddess, and he was going to kill her because he would do anything to succeed.  
  
Was this who I was to become?  
  
The tornado began to pull water from the lake, the basin endlessly flowing into it as a great shape took form above us. It spread wide, covering the sky like a thick quilt, no moonlight permeating the enormous form. I tried to back up, tried to get away--but Val had my body. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t escape.  
  
As she began to take shape, the land around us became darker and darker, until I couldn’t see anything except for myself and Val. Everything was pitch black--but I could tell that the goddess was here. When I looked at her, I saw less than an absence of light--I saw something less than nothing: a complete and utter void, something that my eyes could not see but my heart understood. My body tensed and relaxed in spasms at the sight, unable to respond properly to it--the absence of all and anything in this world. I couldn’t make out her form--but I could tell she was arching over us, covering us completely. She was here. She was unhappy.  
  
“So nice of you to show up.” Val grinned, his hands sparking with electricity once more. “Now,” he smiled, and I felt a pinprick of giddiness from him. “Let’s begin!”  
  
He rushed forwards.  
  
Two enormous diamonds of light revealed themselves within the amorphous void that was the goddess. He froze, mid-stride in his sprint, electricity still arcing around his hands.  
  
For the first time, I felt fear in his mind.  
  
Slowly, more and more diamonds began to open, shedding solid beams of light onto his frozen form, locking him in place. I could feel struggle. Pain. Despair. Everything that he had suppressed from me came rushing back into his body, all at once--and suddenly, I could feel everything.  
  
His very existence was torn from his skin. It didn’t burn, or chill, or sting. It felt as though bark was being gently torn from a tree, as if a spine was plucked from your cheek, as if whatever threads held your existence together snapped with the slightest pressure.  
  
The last thing I heard, his body bathed in brilliant white light, his very being dissolving inside of it--was a scream.  
  
A horrid, guttural scream, hot tears streaming down his face as he collapsed, departing from his body completely.  
  
My body.  
  
Time seemed to freeze around me afterwards. Nothing else showed even the faintest signs of stirring. For what felt like an eternity, I stood still. Tentatively, I took a step. The bright diamonds shifted, pointing at me instead of my body. I flinched, expecting the worst.  
  
Instead, I felt a deep warmth inside of me. It rose from my stomach and bloomed through my thighs and chest, cradling my head and cupping my cheeks. I put a hand to my throat, breathing deeply, and took another step, walking towards my body. With every step, color spread out from around my feet, returning to the surrounding lake. Blue waters, golden sand, emerald trees, and a black sky with a brilliant white moon above me.  
  
I crouched down next to my limp form, and then turned back to the goddess, looking at the first two diamonds that had opened.  
  
“Thank you,” was all I could utter.  
  
For a moment, the diamonds all shut, and I thought I had somehow offended her.  
  
An instant later, they all reopened, shining with millions of different colors, showing me plants and people and clouds and lakes and art and things I didn’t have the words to describe. She showed me every warm beam of sunlight, every cool forest pond, every family and every grave. She showed me everything, her eyes wide as starlight, expanding and pushing past anything I could ever have comprehended.  
  
I thought I had known.  
  
I thought I had known everything this world had to offer for someone like me.  
  
Gods, was I wrong.  
  
My shoulders, for the first time that day, relaxed, and I let out a deep, shaky sigh. The colored lights disappeared as she shut her eyes one by one, until all were closed except for two.  
  
I knelt down on the ground, and joined my hands together, and I prayed.  
  
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I divulged every secret, every insecurity, every doubt that I had in my mind. She did not interrupt me. I prayed until I was exhausted in every way, and finally dropped my hands, letting out one last shaky breath.  
  
And she understood.  
  
Slowly, I turned towards my unconscious body, then back to her. I nodded solemnly. I lay down on the stone, moving into the same position as my body, only my head sticking out now. I stared at the back of my head, took a deep breath, and plunged myself into it.

I awoke in the observatory. The sun shone brightly down onto the marble floors, nearly blinding me as I tried to adjust from the darkness. I covered my eyes and groaned, sitting up slowly. As I did, the door opened, and Castor entered, carrying a tray of food.  
  
“Ah, you’re awake.” Castor smiled at me. “You fell asleep after we finished taking notes for the practical exam. I thought it would be nice to make you breakfast.”  
  
“Thank you.” I looked up at him, seeing how his brown eyes glinted gold in the sunlight, how the beams shone through his soft, black hair. “That was very sweet of you.” I stood up from the chair I had fallen asleep in, grabbing a cup of tea and a plate of eggs and sausages from the tray. I spotted a second cup, a single rose petal resting on the surface.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Castor asked, noting my silence. “Did I burn something?”  
  
“Rose tea with honey,” I said, looking back up at him and smiling. “Right?”  
  
“You’re right!” Castor laughed, looking quite impressed. “How did you figure that out?”  
  
“I can listen, sometimes,” I joked, grinning wider. “As a matter of fact…”  
  
I sat down with Castor, enjoying the breakfast he had prepared slowly, savoring each and every bite. I drank in every story, every joke, and every tale he told. He looked so happy to be talking to me, so happy to share this moment together, so happy to be with a friend. And I think I was happy, too.  
  
Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of his story and let out a chuckle.  
  
“What’s the matter?” I asked.  
  
“It’s just… it’s your eyes,” he said, still grinning. “They’re sparkling. They’re like starlight.”  
  
My smile spread from ear to ear, and I couldn’t help but laugh, too.  
  
“That’s perfect, then.”


End file.
